Startup apps: lighter memory use, same boot time
Phillips disabled six startup entries, including Copilot, Slack, Screenpresso and the Send to OneNote Tool. He then timed how long Windows took to reach a usable desktop.
- Boot time: The baseline median was 49.29 seconds. The two runs after the change averaged 49.18 seconds, a gap of about a tenth of a second.
- Memory: A Task Manager snapshot five minutes after startup showed 6.1GB of RAM in use, against 6.8GB at baseline.
- CPU: He also reported lower CPU use after the change, but gave no figures.
So disabling startup apps looks like a resource-management tweak, not a startup-speed tweak. The boot comparison rests on very few runs, and the RAM and CPU readings are single snapshots. Your results will depend on which apps you disable.
Interface tweaks: animations, transparency and menu delay
- Animation effects: Turning them off removed the Start menu's opening transition. Nothing else felt faster.
- Transparency effects: These changed how the interface looks. Phillips could not detect a performance difference in everyday use.
- MenuShowDelay: This was the one tweak he noticed straight away. The default is 400 milliseconds. Dropping it to 200 was barely noticeable, but 0 made cascading menus open visibly faster.
As Phillips puts it, Windows isn't processing anything faster. It is simply waiting less.
What MenuShowDelay changes
Several outlets describe the value in the same way. MakeUseOf says it lives at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. WindowsForum's own earlier coverage says it is typically stored as a string value (REG_SZ), not a DWORD.
The tweak has limits. It applies to older Win32-style menus. MakeUseOf says those include the extended "Show more options" context menu, plus menus in Control Panel and file-type pickers in save dialogs. Another MakeUseOf piece notes that Windows 11 mixes old Win32 menu code with newer WinUI surfaces, and MenuShowDelay only controls the former. That fits Phillips's finding that the Start menu animation toggle did not make everything else feel quicker.
Safe procedure for the registry edit
This is a general procedure drawn from the sources above, not steps from Phillips's article.
- Press Win+R, type
regeditand press Enter. - Go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. - Before editing, back up the key. WindowsForum's earlier coverage suggests selecting the Desktop key and using File > Export to save a .reg backup.
- Double-click the existing MenuShowDelay value and change it. The Register notes 0 gives instant flyouts, and 100, 200 or 300 milliseconds keep some delay.
- To undo it, MakeUseOf says set the value back to 400 and restart. Signing out and back in is another commonly suggested way to apply the change.
Power modes: a small gap on a narrow test
With the laptop plugged in, Phillips ran winsat cpu -compression three times in each mode.
| Power mode | Average throughput |
|---|---|
| Balanced | 1,391.36 MB/s |
| Best Performance | 1,400.16 MB/s |
| Ultimate Performance | 1,369.50 MB/s |
Best Performance came out about 0.63% ahead of Balanced. Ultimate Performance scored lower. Phillips attributes that gap to normal run-to-run variation, not a slower CPU.
The test has limits. It measures CPU compression throughput only. It says nothing about graphics, storage, battery life or how responsive apps feel. It is also a tool with some age: Microsoft's documentation describes WinSAT as a way to analyze the performance of several system components, including CPU, memory, disk, and graphics. The Microsoft Learn page I reviewed was last updated in 2021 and is written around Windows 8-era deployment. So this is a consistent workload for comparing runs, not a complete modern benchmark.
WinUtil: one preset, several goals
Phillips looked at the Standard preset in WinUtil, a popular customization and debloating tool. He found a mix of purposes in it:
- Privacy: disabling activity history, location tracking and telemetry.
- Maintenance: cleaning temporary files and changing service settings.
- Convenience: adding an End Task option to the taskbar.
The project's README describes WinUtil as a curated compilation of Windows system tasks for installs, tweaks, troubleshooting and Windows updates. It lists Standard as balanced defaults for most users, and points to a preset.json file for the exact contents. Preset contents can change, so check that file instead of relying on any one review's list.
The README also says WinUtil must run as Administrator because it makes system-wide changes. That is a good reason to review each selected tweak before you apply it, and to create a restore point first.
Search indexing: coverage, not speed
Phillips switched from Classic to Enhanced indexing, waited for indexing to finish, and searched for a known video in Downloads three times. He then repeated the test in Classic. Every search was instant in both modes.
That is a small test, but it matches how Microsoft frames the choice.
- Classic: Microsoft says it indexes Documents, Pictures and Music folders plus the desktop by default, and balances search performance against system resource use. You can add locations through Customize search locations.
- Enhanced: It indexes the entire PC, which gives more comprehensive results but may use more system resources.
The first indexing pass can take up to a couple of hours. Enhanced is the right fix when files sit outside Classic's default folders. It is not a general speed upgrade. Adding specific folders to Classic may suit you better than indexing the whole machine.
Matching the fix to the complaint
| Your complaint | Tweak that may help | What to measure |
|---|---|---|
| Too many background apps using RAM | Disable startup apps | RAM and CPU a few minutes after boot |
| Cascading menus feel laggy | Lower MenuShowDelay | How menus feel in File Explorer and older dialogs |
| Search misses files | Enhanced mode, or add locations to Classic | Whether the files now appear |
| Wanting a more minimal look | Animation and transparency toggles | Appearance only |
Why this matters
Plenty of Windows tuning advice is sold as a bundle of "make it faster" tricks. This test shows why that framing misleads. A tweak can lower background load, remove an interface delay or widen search coverage without improving boot time or application speed.
The better habit is to name the symptom first, change one thing, and measure that same symptom before and after. Phillips's own summary agrees: the most effective tweak is usually the one aimed at the specific problem. If your PC still feels slow after sensible tweaks, the cause may be storage, memory pressure, drivers or hardware, and none of these settings will reach it.